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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25842610">Angouleme</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruusverd/pseuds/Ruusverd'>Ruusverd</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Echoes of the Fall AU [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Echoes of the Fall - Adrian Tchaikovsky, Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bronze Age AU, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, an oc gets his ear bitten, but that's ok he deserves it, how many feral gremlin children can Geralt adopt in one cross-country hike?, shapeshifter AU</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:47:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,094</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25842610</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruusverd/pseuds/Ruusverd</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Geralt has an unpleasant encounter with some of the locals, and adds another member to his 'warband.' Jaskier continues to be concerned about Geralt's planning skills.</p><p>Part 8 of the Echoes of the Fall AU.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Echoes of the Fall AU [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1863010</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Angouleme</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>In which Geralt goes to the grocery store and comes back with another kid. Jaskier is starting to worry about how often this is happening.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Cahir insisted that he hadn’t had opportunity to report back to his warband, and that the south would therefore have no idea where Ciri was or who she was traveling with. With the threat of immediate pursuit thus lessened, they were able to travel at a slightly less punishing pace. Finding water was still a daily concern, but their luck on that front continued to hold.</p><p>Now that he wasn’t about to drop from exhaustion, Jaskier started composing one of his long, chanting songs about the journey, insisting it was important history that needed to be preserved. It was part of his ongoing penance, he said. He had to collect stories and sing them accurately to make up for having tried to rewrite his own tribe’s history. Geralt thought he just enjoyed doing it. He also thought that if the songs Jaskier had written since they met were accurate compared to whatever he’d done to the Eyrie’s history, he didn’t blame them for exiling him.</p><p>Cahir had the hardest time managing, with his healing wound and a Stepped shape unsuited to hunting on the Plains, but he stubbornly managed to keep up. Geralt still refused to share food with the Caiman lest he be bound by the laws of hospitality. If he’d noticed Jaskier slipping the man food behind his back he chose not to acknowledge it. Geralt’s only contribution to the river man's continued survival was heading off Ciri from trying to murder him twice a day.</p><p>They hadn’t reached the end of their supplies yet, but if they wanted to make it to the river without running out Geralt was going to have to hunt. He didn’t like the idea of leaving the others alone with Cahir, but he didn’t have a choice. He firmly told Plotka to kick the river man in the head if he came too near, and headed off on his own. Geralt knew Plotka didn’t understand much of what he said, but he was fairly confident she would try to protect Jaskier and Ciri anyway if she thought they were being attacked. Telling the mare to do things she would have done anyway was a simple way to give the illusion that she understood more than she actually did.</p><p>He brought down a small antelope quickly, mostly he suspected because the animal had never seen a wolf before. Generally it would have been difficult to impossible for a lone wolf to bring down such swift prey. His wolf soul, still running on instinct from the hunt, demanded that he gorge on the meat and fill his empty stomach, but he firmly shoved those instincts aside with the ease of long years of practice. He Stepped, pulled his knife and set about field dressing the animal so he could carry it back.</p><p>He was so focused on his kill that he was taken completely off guard when a group of three young Lion men practically tripped over him in the tall grass. Judging by the shocked expressions on their faces, they hadn’t expected to find him, either. The surprise quickly gave way to arrogant superiority, and they spread out to surround him.</p><p>At first, he thought they were dragging a kill of their own behind them, but as they moved apart he realized it was a young girl being hauled along by a rope around her hands. Their eyes met and for a moment Geralt thought he was looking at Ciri. Then he blinked and realized this girl was a few years older than Ciri. Her hair was shaved on the sides, leaving a long mane running down the middle. Parts of her dark hair showed the faded remnants of red and yellow dyes. <em>One of the Laughing Men,</em> Geralt decided, <em>or a Laughing Girl, anyway.</em></p><p>Carefully, he sized up his opponents, remaining crouched over the dead antelope. One wolf against three lions wasn’t the best of odds, but these were very young men, likely newly exiled from their home villages. It was the custom for young Lion men to be driven away when they reached adulthood, and they tended to band together and wreak havoc across the Plains until they either died or won a place in a new village. Most of them died, usually within a few years. With the occasional exception such as Calanthe had been, most Lions would only pursue an attack as long as they felt confident of a quick, easy victory. This was particularly true of these wandering bands of inexperienced young men who knew any significant injury would likely mean death. Geralt was fairly confident a minor show of force would be enough to scare them off.</p><p>“An Iron Wolf!” one of the Lions laughed exuberantly, “You are far from home, Wolf!”</p><p>“The Lion is with us today!” another declared, spreading his arms in what Geralt assumed was supposed to be an intimidating fashion. To an experienced fighter like Geralt it just looked like he was asking to be stabbed in the chest. “Not only the Laughing Girl, but an Iron Wolf to give to his Claws!” he nudged the antelope with his toe, “and a meal for us, as well!”</p><p>“Your Lion will get nothing from you today,” Geralt told them calmly, “Not me, and not her.”</p><p>He expected the Lions to continue baiting him as they worked up their courage to attack, but the Hyena girl unexpectedly pushed herself to her feet and leaped onto the nearest Lion with a heckling war cry, looping her bound hands around his neck to keep him in his human shape and biting savagely into his ear. The Lion man—or boy, really—shrieked in pain and surprise, and Geralt took advantage of the distraction to launch himself over the antelope’s body and tackle one of the others to the ground.</p><p>True to his expectations, it took very little time and only a few minor cuts and bruises before the Lions Stepped and ran away, one of them shaking his head and flinging drops of blood from his mangled ear. Geralt and the girl were left standing alone, the girl cackling madly.</p><p>“That’ll teach them!” she said, grinning at Geralt, “the dirty cowards!” At closer range, Geralt estimated she was perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old. Old enough to Step, judging by the leather collar around her neck locking her in her human form, but she likely had only begun to Step in the last year or so. Geralt untied her hands and let her deal with the collar herself.</p><p>“Where’s your village?” he asked her, torn between getting back as quickly as possible and not letting a lone child wander around by herself.</p><p>‘None left,” she said, still grinning but with a sharp edge to it, “Lions got them all. Not those shit-eaters,” she gestured after her former captors, “A proper warband, with Lionesses and all. I hid in the mud by the watering hole, and they didn’t find me. Been on my own since.”</p><p>“Do you have family in any other village, any other place to go?”</p><p>“Well I’m going with you, of course! You saved my life, that means you’re responsible for me from now on! That’s the custom here on the Plains,” she said, as if it should be obvious, “I guess you might not know that, being from up north and all.”</p><p>Geralt knew it was not, in fact, the custom of any of the Plains tribes. The only traditions he’d ever heard were the other way around: the one rescued owed a life-debt to the rescuer. The way he’d ended up with Ciri was proof enough of that. But he wasn’t willing to send the girl off alone so her merely nodded as if he believed her, “What’s your name?”</p><p>“I’m Angouleme!” Geralt was starting to suspect the unsettling grin was permanently attached to her face, “You can call me Lem, if you like.”</p><p>“Angouleme. Lem. I’m Geralt White Wolf. You can come with me if you want, but we’re headed north to the Crown of the World, I doubt there are any other Hyenas there for you to join.”</p><p>She shrugged, apparently indifferent. She watched him finished dressing the antelope and tie its legs together without offering any help.</p><p>“There are a few other people traveling with me too, and you’re not allowed to fight with any of them,” Geralt told her firmly, thinking of Ciri and the age-old enmity between the Hyena and the Lion.</p><p>“What kind of people?”</p><p>Geralt hoisted the antelope up, and pointed Lem in the right direction. “A Crow man, a Horse, and a Lion girl a few years younger than you. That won’t be a problem, I assume?”</p><p>She shrugged again, “I won’t go after her if she don’t go after me.”</p><p>Geralt didn’t find that very reassuring. Ciri seemed very willing to go after anyone. He hoped Jaskier had managed to stop her from attcking Cahir while he was gone, more for her sake than the Caiman’s.</p><p>To Geralt’s relief, there was a distinct lack of blood and carnage when they reached the place where the others were waiting. Geralt introduced Lem to the others, then Jaskier and Geralt started butchering the antelope while Lem and Ciri got acquainted.</p><p>Ciri initially bristled at the Hyena girl, but quickly calmed down. The benefit of having another girl near her age in the party outweighed the long-standing feud of their ancestors, Geralt assumed.</p><p>“Who’s that?” Lem pointed at Cahir, who was sitting a short distance away, “You didn’t tell me about that one.”</p><p>“That’s Cahir. He’s evil and we hate him,” Ciri informed her.</p><p>“He’s a Caiman,” Geralt added.</p><p>Lem squinted as if trying to determine if they were making fun of her, “What’s a Caiman?”</p><p>“A slightly less massive crocodile,” Geralt told her, watching the southerner’s face twist up in annoyance.</p><p>“What’s he doing here, if he’s not with you?”</p><p>“These things are known: I am chasing them,” the Caiman said dryly, “but at a very close range.”</p><p>Lem gave another eerie laugh, “That’s stupid! What are you doing in the Plains, anyway? Crocodiles live in the far south!”</p><p>“I am a <em>Caiman,</em> and I am a soldier of the Sun River Nation,” Cahir told her.</p><p>“What’s a soldier?” Lem asked. Ciri also looked confused. Cahir looked blank, as if it had never occurred to him that most of the world couldn’t afford to have a whole group of healthy adults who contributed nothing to the tribe's survival except by fighting.</p><p>“In the south they have warriors who are warriors all the time,” Geralt explained, “Instead of being hunters or farmers most of the time and warriors only when a warband is needed.”</p><p>“Why? What do they do when there isn’t any fighting?”</p><p>Geralt shrugged, “Stand around and wait for there to be fighting, I suppose.”</p><p>Lem scrunched up her face again like she thought Geralt was playing a trick on her.</p><p>“I’m not lying," Geralt insisted. "Ask Cahir. He’s the soldier, he probably knows more about it than I do.”</p><p>The Hyena girl started to pepper Cahir with questions in earnest, while Ciri pretended very hard not to be interested in the answers.</p><p>Jaskier leaned in close to mutter under his breath “Another stray, Geralt? Don’t we have enough mouths to feed already?”</p><p>“What was I supposed to do, Jaskier? Leave her on her own? She has no tribe and she’d already been caught by a group of Lions once,” Geralt defended himself, “Besides, she’s old enough to Step. That makes her close to adulthood by the standards of most tribes. She might be able to help with the hunting and with standing guard.”</p><p>“Oh-ho, Ciri is not going to like that at all" Jaskier predicted, "She’s attached to you already, it’s going to make her <em>furiously</em> jealous if you take Lem hunting with you and not her.”</p><p>“Lem’s just traveling with us so she can survive, she’s not competing with Ciri,” Geralt protested, “Ciri’s mine, my daughter<em>.</em> It’s different, Ciri knows that.”</p><p>“If you say so,” Jaskier looked skeptical, “But you’ve got to stop collecting every lone traveler we meet. We’ve gone from three mismatched outcasts to six in less than ten days. It’s getting ridiculous. I thought we were trying <em>not</em> to draw attention to ourselves.”</p><p>“Five,” Geralt corrected, “I haven’t collected Cahir. He’s not traveling with us.”</p><p>“Not officially. Not <em>yet.</em> I give it another week,” Jaskier predicted darkly.</p><p>Geralt huffed and decided to ignore him. Foolish Crow<em> clearly</em> didn’t know what he was talking about.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The name Angouleme drives me crazy every time I type it, and I refuse to do so any more than I have to. It's very long, and it means nothing aside from being the name of an actual city in France. The character might as well be named "Versailles" or "Toulouse." So she is now Lem.</p><p>I have never ever met a 13/14 year old girl who would consider an 8 year old close to her in age, but Geralt knows even less about preteen girls than Jaskier does about wolves. He has no idea what he's getting into, the poor man.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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